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Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Steve Buscemi

If you’re looking for a movie about well-dressed, foul-mouthed gangsters who tell tasteless jokes and spend great amounts of time debating the finer sociological aspect of tipping at restaurants, Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is the movie for you. It is a simple, mobster-style movie peppered with flashbacks and gunfire. Though the plot is coated with mystery, the film plays more like a character-drama, chronicling some important moments in the lives of a few complicated individuals.

Oh, and congratulations, Steve Buscemi.

WARNING: OFFAL SPOILER ALERT

Congratulations, Steve Buscemi. Reservoir Dogs highlights the crazy antics of one of Buscemi’s most successful characters. In this case, “successful” refers not to the critics’ responses to Buscemi’s character but to the character’s relative success in the actual events that occur during the course of the movie. This relative success is celebration-worthy because Buscemi’s characters don’t often succeed. A Buscemi-played character is likely to become mentally unstable, mangled, or dead. Let’s look at some of Steve Buscemi’s characters:

And that is just a sample. Sure, there are exceptions to this trend, but the already small list of anomalies is saturated with relatively unlikable characters like Randall Boggs from Monsters, Inc., Garland Greene from Con Air, and Clint Fitzer from I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.

Of course, given the release dates of these movies, it is possible that Buscemi perfected his oddball character type after playing Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs. But, still, it’s comforting to know that at least a couple of Steve Buscemi’s characters had relative success in their respective universes. And it is relative success: Mr. Pink probably died.

But, of course, all of this is a testament to Buscemi’s artistic skill. His ability to consistently provide moviegoers with compelling and often comedic weirdos/sociopaths is unparalleled. Thank you, Steve Buscemi, and congratulations.